


The Size Of Your Life

by ouroboros



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Growing Up, M/M, Self-cest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5868817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouroboros/pseuds/ouroboros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>When you join Japan's national volleyball team, you realize that the first time must happen soon. The bright red of your practice jersey is one of the few things you can call up about your childhood first impression of your older self. It’s strange, because twenty two doesn’t </i>feel<i> like an adult, but you remember him looking so impossibly old, before.</i></p><p>  <i>You start carrying a volleyball around with you nearly constantly, just in case.</i></p><p> </p><p>Kageyama visits himself at different points along his own timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Size Of Your Life

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the SWAG prompt that said: _"Through magic, science, or time shenanigans, Kageyama meets another version (or multiple versions) of himself. Could be older, younger or same-age. I'm imagining some deep and potentially unsettling introspection in the form of conversation with himself taking place, but anything for this would be awesome. Going the nsfw route is a-ok (but only with a same-age or older version of himself, no nsfw with middle school Kageyama)."_
> 
> The time mechanics work (similarly to The Time Traveler's Wife, if you've read it) like this: Kageyama blinks out of his current time and appears briefly near himself at another point in his life. It doesn't happen often, and he can't control it. 
> 
> It stays SFW, but with a tiny bit of (aged up) selfcest-y thoughts, if that bothers you.

The first time you see him, you’re very small. Small enough to not recognize him. You're seven and he is twenty two, but everyone older than twelve seems to morph into a general grownup mass; something you're not particularly interested in. 

You've just crashed your bike and you're sitting next to it on the ground in front of your apartment building, poking at the new scrape on your knee, and then you hear him. You aren't scared, because being scared is not something you do. You're angry, though, because your leg hurts and you are pretty sure that you had been alone until a minute ago, and so the fact that he's here now doesn't make sense. You don't like things that don't make sense.

You've been taught to not speak to strangers, which was a rule you've never had a problem following, before, because why would you _want_ to? This man, though, looks familiar to you. You don't know it's future-you, of course. But there's something about him that grabs your attention, which is not something that normally happens.

He's wearing a bright red jersey with a 9 on it. His eyes are big and maybe a little sad, you think. You aren't very good at telling that sort of thing. He squats down next to you and places the ball he’d been holding onto the ground next to him.

"Are you okay?" he asks, and his voice is soft and deep.

You nod and stand up, stomping your hurt leg on the ground to prove it to him. "I'm fine."

"Not your bike, though," he says, pointing. and you look to your left, where the bent front wheel is still spinning a bit. Frustration hits you, then, because you hadn't noticed, and your face pinches up. You don't want to cry in front of him.

"Hey, look," he says, picking up the ball he’d put down before, and the angry pricks of tears behind your eyes fade, because you're curious. "Have you ever played volleyball?"

You shake your head.

He spins the ball in his hand, then he throws it up in the air, directly above himself, and when it starts falling back down, he jumps up to meet it, smacking it, _wham_ , right into the side of the apartment building. It's the coolest thing you've ever seen. He turns back to you, and his face is serious when he says "Do you want to learn?"

"Yes." It wasn't something you've thought of, before, but you want it now, so badly.

"Step over here," he says, pointing to a spot a little closer to the wall. "Hold your right hand up, here." 

You put your hand up, above your head, and he nods, continuing. "I'm going to toss for you, which means I'm going to throw you the ball, and when it gets to you, to right here where your hand is, I want you to hit it at the wall." 

"Do I get to jump?"

"Next. Hit it standing, first. Then you can jump."

You frown. You want to jump so high and make the ball hit the wall so loud. "I want to jump like you did."

He sighs, and stares at you for a little bit. You stare back. 

"Fine, jump."

You nod, happy, and he walks a few paces away.

The ball comes to you in a beautiful arc, and you're almost too enthralled by it to remember to act. You jump, and you miss it.

The second time, your fingers brush the ball, and the third time, you hit it, and hits the wall with the most satisfying _thump_ you've ever heard. Your palm stings, your heart is racing.

“Do you think you can do the same for me? Get it to the _perfect_ spot so I can hit it?”

You’re sure of it, and you tell him so.

The two of you take turns, again and again, until your hands hurt and you know you have to go inside, but you've never wanted to skip dinner more in your whole life. 

He eventually stops and walks over to you. You ask "What's your name?" because that is polite to do.

He doesn't answer for a moment, but then, "Tobio," he says, and your eyes grow wide.

You point at yourself, straight at your chest, "That's my name."

He nods. "I know." You're not sure what that means, but you like your name more, now, because of it.

"Nice to meet you, Tobio," he says, and he doesn't try to squeeze you into a hug or pinch your cheeks, like other grownups. He sticks his hand out to shake yours, and you take it. His smile, you think, is nice.

"Keep practicing," he says, and hands you the volleyball. You stare down at it, big in your hands. When you look up, he's gone.

~~~~

You don't see him again until you're eight and he says he is nineteen. He explains it to you then. “You can’t control it,” he says, “but you’ll feel a pull in your guts, and that means it is about to happen. Things will move around in your eyes, and after a minute, you’ll be sometime else.”

You are worried about that. “Can’t you just come to me every time?”

“I will, but also you will be me, another time, coming here to visit you.”

That is confusing, and you want to be done talking about it. As soon as you saw him, your muscles started screaming at you to play more volleyball, to show him how much better you’ve gotten, practicing all by yourself. But he’s still talking. “You don’t need to be afraid, because you’ll always have a friend when you get there, the other you.”

You nod, because you can’t think of a reason you’d lie to yourself, and no other version of an explanation makes sense. “Okay,” you say. “I believe you. Can I toss to you, now?”

He stands up immediately, and it makes you happy. “Where’s the ball I gave you?”

You bolt off to go get it. You don’t know if you’ve ever run faster.

~~~~~

The first time you feel the pull, the heavy weight in your belly that he told you about, you’re nine, and you’re so scared. What if you fall when you get there? What if it hurts? You try to grab your volleyball to bring it with you, but you don’t reach it in time.

You land on a floor, but there’s a rug, something soft, and it only hurts a bit. You open your eyes slowly, and when you do, he’s there. He’s sitting at a table, drinking something warm out of a mug. He’s wearing pajamas, and at thirty three, he’s the oldest you’ve seen him. 

“Tobio!” he says, and his eyes go big. He stands up immediately and runs over to you. “This is the first, right?” He asks, his eyes darting behind him, and then back at you.

Standing up, you nod. You still feel a bit shaky. Looking around, you wonder if this is where he lives when he is grown up. It feels so weird here, but there are volleyball trophies, _big_ ones, in a case, and you are about to go over to them when you hear another voice, and you freeze. There’s never been anyone else around, before, but another man walks around the corner of a hallway.

“Tobio,” the stranger says, and your heart is beating so fast. He’s wearing his pajamas, too, and he has soft, silver hair. “I was thinking, do you want to--” He sees you and he stops short, pulling a hand up to his mouth. “-- _Oh_.” He says it so softly, so warm, and you are already less afraid, but only a little. He looks over at the other you, who nods at him. 

“Hello,” he says to you, and his smile is kind. You wave, and he takes a half-step toward you. “I should…. I’ll leave you two to it. It’s nice to meet you, finally, Tobio.” And he’s gone, back down the hallway.

“You told people about me?” you ask. It had never occurred to you to share this thing you could do with anyone.

“Just him,” he says, and you almost ask who he is, but then he says “Do you want to play?” and all your curiosity is gone, because you remember, and it fills your body up with sadness. You still don’t want to cry in front of him.

“I didn’t bring the volleyball you gave me.” 

He laughs and says “Don’t worry. I have plenty.”

~~~~~

You’ve accepted this bizarre power as a thing that happens to you, but it doesn’t hit you as a visceral truth until you are thirteen, and he is fifteen.

You are sitting on your futon in the dark with your legs tucked up under your chin and your arms wrapped around your knees. You're busy thinking about how you hate everything and trying not to cry, so you don't even know he's there until he sits next to you, shifting your weight. This time his face is made up of softer versions of the same lines as in your memories of him, of you, when he was older. It's confusing. 

He’s been close to your age, before. You were both nine once, and another time he was eleven and you were ten, but he was only a week ahead of you, your birthday in between you, and when you told him that barely counted, he told you no one got you any presents. You spent all week worrying about it, and you were so angry when it wasn’t true that you took it out on your younger self, the same way it had been taken out on you.

But this time is the first time you’ve been old enough to appreciate how _you_ he is, and it hits you, hard, when you look up at him through your tears. He’s still taller, and stronger looking, and you feel your brain stretching uncomfortably to accommodate the information.

You figure you should explain your crying. Normally, whichever one of you is the traveler needs a minute to get his bearings, to figure out when and where he is, but you hope that he remembers this time from when he experienced it as you, because you aren't sure you have it in you to explain.

"Oh." He says. "This is about the 'King of the Court' thing." He says, his voice flippant and casual, like it isn't the worst moment of your whole life.

"It's not a _thing_." it boils in your guts. Your team hates you, Oikawa laughs at you behind your back and to your face, and all the things you worked on are unappreciated piles of dust in your hands. You thought he’d understand.

He shrugs next to you "You'll get past it." 

That isn't reassuring or comforting. "Why are you here, now?" You spit out. "You're not helping."

"It's not like I _wanted_ to be here. It just happens." He says, frowning, like you don't already know that. You're so tired.

You flop onto your side on the futon, your feet ending up in his lap. You restrain yourself from kicking him too hard.

"It's not so bad, later" he says. "You're going to go up against him, when you’re my age. You’ll like Karasuno more. I think we might win, this time. And there are more important things, anyway."

But you don't want to hear about that. Nothing is more important than it feels now. You kick him off the bed. He goes with it, tucking into himself and rolling off the futon like he expects it, which is even more infuriating. You hate him. You kick and pull the covers up over your head.

"Stop being so _stupid_ he says, and his voice is deeper than yours, and his eyes are prettier, and you don't get why he's _here_ , and why this isn't something that happens to anyone else.

"GET THE FUCK OUT," you say, and that's the first time you've ever said that word out loud. His eyebrows raise, and that just makes you angrier. "Leave me ALONE."

He looks up at you from the floor, just as angry. "I _CAN'T_." he screams back. "You _know_ we can't control it."

The mention of _we_ , like you're both dealing with the same weird convergence of self, together, just makes it worse. You pull your blanket over your head and wait until the noises of him breathing angrily go away. When they do, you lift the corner of the sheet, and he's gone. It feels like it should be a victory, but you start crying again, anyway. You pull the sheet up close to your neck and wait, half-hoping that your only friend will come back and tell you again that it'll be okay, but he doesn't. You teach yourself how to cry yourself to sleep, all on your own.

~~~~

When you see him next, It’s been so long. You’d begun to think you’d made it all up, or that he was angry at you for yelling at him, and found a way to stop coming back. Waiting had hurt more than you had expected.

The two of you are alone on the outdoor practice court. You're older than you were last time, of course. But so is he. You feel the tight stretch in the broadness of your chest that you'd seen in his, before. You're in high school, now, with teammates who seem to trust you, a few you might call friends, and one, a few years older, that you wish you could call something more. 

He looks like he's in university.

You had wanted him to come back so badly, so you can show him what you've learned. You've forgiven him for before, and hoped he's done the same, but he doesn't mention it. He's wearing a long coat with a high collar, and you figure it must be winter, whenever he's coming from. It's summer, here, though.

"Hey." you say, and he nods in kind. Your heart is beating fast, and you're not sure where to start. "Do you want to toss to me?" you try, because you know that, at least, will be common ground.

He pulls nervously at his coat buttons, and you have a moment where you think he might have grown out of volleyball and is afraid to show it to you. "Unless you don't want to?" It's a lead weight in your throat.

His gaze sharpens against you "No, I do." He takes his coat off, but his eyebrows are tight together and he is frowning and you think it means he’s nervous, but you’re still so bad at reading that sort of thing, even on yourself.

You take turns tossing to each other; a silent, solemn apology. You're used to trying to take note of your teammates by now, so looking at him closely is more natural. After a few traded sets, you notice the dark marks on his neck, and you can't bring yourself to focus on anything else. You give up and drop the ball. Walking over to him, you press a finger against the purple mark just below his jaw. Your feet scuff on the pavement, and you feel small.

"What's this?" you ask, though you know what a hickey is. You're tired of him always being one step ahead, or a hundred.

He swallows, and your fingers feel the bob of his adam's apple. He doesn't answer, just stares back at you. You want to know who has done this to him, to you, and you think of a few possibilities. Your own neck tingles, and your eyelids flutter closed. You press your thumb into the bruise, because you know you'd like that, and you're rewarded with a strangled sound and a sharp intake of breath.

You close your eyes, fingers lingering on his neck. He is very still. You think about soft, silver hair and sharp smiles. You think about Suga pushing you against the gym wall and biting you from where he can reach. Then you picture it happening to the other you, and being him, or him being you, and it gets mixed up in your head. It’s a tangle of bodies and selves and pretty bruises bitten into necks, all together, all at once. And then it’s not even Suga anymore, just him and you, a hungry, gasping mirror-image twist of hands and tongues and teeth. Your knees shake, and he takes a step back. He must remember what you were thinking from when it was his brain doing it, and you're not sure if you want him to be disgusted or to confirm that he thought it too.

He looks at your neck, and rubs his defensively. You know it is his thing to keep to himself, and it’ll be yours later, but you want it now, you want it, you want.

~~~~

When you join Japan's national volleyball team, you realize that the first time must happen soon. The bright red of your practice jersey is one of the few things you can call up about your childhood first impression of your older self. It’s strange, because twenty two doesn’t _feel_ like an adult, but you remember him looking so impossibly old, before.

You start carrying a volleyball around with you nearly constantly, just in case.

Suga notices. "But if you had a volleyball with you then, won't you automatically just have it with you, this time?” He says, pulling at your arm from where you’re sitting on the other side of the couch. He guides your worried head into his lap to run his thin, pretty fingers through your hair. “You don't have to worry about carrying it everywhere, because when it happens, it'll naturally be a time when you'd have been holding it, anyway."

You twist to look up at him. He’s probably right. He’s spent more time thinking about how all this works than you have, and he’s only known about it for a year. "What if it happens in the middle of a practice?"

Suga purses his lips, thinking. "You'd have enough time to fake sickness when you felt it, I think. And there's no use worrying too hard about it. It'll happen when it happens. You've been fine, so far."

You nod and turn back, closing your eyes against the tingle of his fingernails on your scalp.

 

When it happens, you're not, thankfully, surrounded by your teammates. You _are_ practicing, but it’s just with Suga. He doesn’t play much anymore, but every once in a while he’ll toss a ball around with you. 

You’re playing one on one, which is sort of pointless, since there’s no one for either of you to set to, but you’re running hard and he is laughing, and not losing by too much. You’re happy. 

The sharp, sick pull in your guts is familiar, and Suga celebrates a point against you only briefly before realizing what’s happening. Then he ducks under the net and jogs, breathless, to where you’re standing on the edge of the court.

“Is it happening?” he asks, looking up at you worriedly, his hands on his hips and chest heaving. 

You nod. He bends down to scoop up the volleyball and hands it you. He straightens your practice jacket and steps up on his tiptoes to kiss you. “Good luck,” he says, eyes bright, and then the world spins around you and he’s gone.

 

You open your eyes and you’re back at your childhood apartment. A boy is riding his bicycle, shoulders hunched and pedaling too fast and reckless to notice the rock he’s about to hit.

When he falls, you start walking over. His face is so tiny, so serious and pinched up on itself with pain trying to mask itself as anger, and it pulls at you hard. You squat down next to him, and, trying to keep your voice soft and unthreatening, you speak.

**Author's Note:**

> So I originally started filling this prompt with a selfcest sex scene (both adults), but then went back to add more buildup, and then the tone didn't fit it anymore, so I left it out. Um. If enough people are interested in the Kageyama/Kageyama porno bit, or an, ahem, KageSugaKage bit, I might finish writing that and post it separately? IDK, any feedback is appreciated:D
> 
> Title from [My Life Was The Size Of My Life](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/10/my-life-was-the-size-of-my-life), by Jane Hirschfield


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